Finding ways to stay cool in this heat...

My Last Season in India

While we were in Karnataka at our Indicorps workshop I had forgotten the Rajasthani heat, which had been creeping upwards from 110 degrees Fahrenheit. When we came back, it was nearly 120 degrees during the day, and not far below 100 at night. These days the sun scorches anything it touches, carving cracks into the earth, my skin. I remember the winter here, wearing layers upon layers against the cold. As that cold began to fade, and the weather became pleasant, we were warned about the summer. But the subject of those warnings seemed so far away; May and June would never come—we had loads of time. Now the heat is here, we are in the middle of it. How did it come so fast? We are all begging for the rains to come, waiting for the relief they will bring. It must be only me who is at the same time hesitant, who is not sure she wants everything the rains will bring with them.

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Yesterday afternoon, as I was walking with one of the older village women to the field to cut fodder for our buffalo, I received my first warning from the sky. I felt something small, delicate, and wet land on my forehead. “The rains are coming. Your year is almost over.” I looked up at clouds that looked too white to bear rain. It was only May 29^th—early yet for the monsoon. It was too hot for my brain to process the possibility of an early shower, so I continued cutting grass for Bhensie, and came back to the campus believing the single drop had been in my mind.

Shortly after, Harpreet and I headed to the kitchen to begin cooking dinner. I was mashing potatoes for parantha, when I heard a faint hush sound coming from the quiet evening outside. Harpreet and I looked at each other, too hopeful to say much of anything. Before we could process the notion of a weather miracle, the kitchen door blew open, and a heavy wind carried in a storm of dust—the dry gritty kind that covers everything after nearly eight months without a drop of rain. But the wind felt cooler, as if to say, “All right, here it is, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!” Then the water fell. The rain came in huge drops that pelted the dry earth, hitting her almost abusively before she drank in the first rain of the year. The storm wanted to be violent, dramatic, but everyone was too blissful in the unexpected rain to treat it with such reverence. The air was cool and tranquil that night, and everyone slept well. I was kept awake though, for a while, for the rain was a bittersweet rain. It was cooling and exciting, but it represented something else also: the nearing completion of my one year in India. When I arrived in India last August, the monsoon was just ending. I have been through all of the seasons here now; I have seen the cycle of every crop. All that is left is the monsoon to bring it full circle.

The following morning everything was as dry as before, with hardly any sign of the early storm. We are back to the oppressive heat; we will continue napping during the hottest part of the day when our brains cannot function. But it is only a matter of time before the real monsoons start. The first rain was a reminder that these last months must be my strongest. The rain will be my ending note here—the end of a year of discovery, of myriad failures sprinkled here and there with successes and acquired wisdom, of growth. My final season in India. So as the water begins to descend upon us, I will be pushing through to the finish line. I will be assessing the impact my work has had here, I will be treasuring the days I have left with my friends, and I will be memorizing the outline of every beautiful tree and rock of my Indian home. I want every piece of effort I leave behind to be meaningful in some capacity. I know I have learned more this year than I could ever hope to teach, but the thought of rain reminds me that I must be giving back. I must give so much that when I walk through the downpour onto my return flight in Ahmedabad, I will be completely empty—all of my energy left back in a small village in Rajasthan, soaking into the wet earth with the rain.

Create a Space to Smile

I am talking to Kalubhai, sitting on a bench outside of my small mud kitchen, and trying to get him to taste the daal I made. His eyes take the sunlight and split it into a thousand pieces, sparkling as he laughs a true, free, unrestrained laugh. I do not put enough chili, into anything I cook. According to Kalu, according to everyone in the village. My foreigner’s aversion to mouthfire spice is his reason for laughter now.

Two hands appear from behind Kalu and cover his eyes. They are jingly-jangly hands, adorned with bangles whose sparkle sounds replace Kalu’s sparkling eyes. Attached to the jingly-jangly hands is a smiling woman, clearly amused by her own subtle creation of mischief in our small corner of the world. Kalu’s hands shoot up, reading the bangles like the books he has taught himself to decipher. Glass or lacquer? How many? What size? Who is she? I know he will figure it out. The men here have become expert at recognizing women by the saris they wear, the bangles, the toe rings. How else will they know? The women’s faces are constantly veiled by their saris—a punishment hidden in the open, a daily toll paid, for being born a girl in a man’s society.

Here, today, on the campus of Hum Kisan Sangathan (Our Farmers’ Collective)—the organization that has become a part of me after eight months of working in Rajasthan—jingly-jangly Basantibai wears no veil. She smiles silently but wholly, for her voice will give away the mystery. A true, free, unrestrained smile. Kalu guesses her name, and pulls her hands off as she steps closer to me, revealing her identity. The silent smile becomes a giggle. They are not husband and wife, not family. They are friends, and here only can they express it. Away from the village’s low, sometimes suffocating ceiling of social norms, written by traditions with origins that no longer hold any significance, yet sneak into every crevice of life like an invisible, inescapable fog. It is as if the gate leading into the Sangathan’s campus (always alive and singing with the sounds of handlooms and school children), serves as a magical barrier to that fog. Here, the ceiling is lifted and everyone, once they walk though that gate, truly acts differently. Here, the soulsparkle can peek through eyes and bangles, unashamed.

From the rocky Rajasthani soil, from mere bricks and branches, a space has been created in this campus that not only protects freedom of expression, but encourages it. For me, this is the most amazing accomplishment achieved by Devendra, the founder of and unfaltering believer in Hum Kisan Sangathan. This campus has become a space with the power to completely free people. I work with the members of the handloom cooperative founded by the Sangathan, and everyday I see how their interactions with each other change in this space—especially those between men and women. There is more laughter, more silliness. Smiles sparkle all day long. This is true with the children who attend the Sangathan’s school as well. During the months leading up to their exams, nearly all of standards eight and ten spent day and night on this campus. Most of the time their noses were in books, breathing in every detail in preparation for their exams. When they had a free hour or two though, they would slip off their shoes and do cartwheels in the library, or sit in teenage circles and whisper things my twenty three-year-old ears were not allowed to hear. These things do not happen in the village, but they happen here.

How long did it take for these magical powers to settle themselves into the walls of the campus, into its trees and water? I imagine it was gradual, like vines creeping, or leaky faucets dripping. Thousands of years of traditions mold the Way of Life in the village, and the mold is hard to break. It must be softened first, and then remolded by a thousand willing hands before a new shape will take place, a slightly different, more tolerant and understanding Way of Life. Over the past thirty years, Devendra and the Sangathan have been the reshapers, and have sewn new Ways into the campus atmosphere. If these freeing powers are only growing stronger, might they break beyond the campus gate? Beyond our village itself? Small changes already have. Acceptance brings change brings possibility. Create a space for people to let their laughter bubble up from the bottom, for them to speak openly to whomever they want, for them to build their confidence, and amazing things will happen. Jingly-jangly, sparkly things that will change lives.